Scientific Establishment response to "intelligent design" debate: parody, ridicule... and retaliation

Theory of Intelligent Design: A Debate Evolves
By: Linda Shaw
The Seattle Times (March 30, 2005)

Three years ago, the Ohio Board of Education invited a small but influential Seattle think tank to debate the way evolution is taught in Ohio schools. It was an opportunity for the Discovery Institute to promote its notion of intelligent design, the controversial idea that parts of life are so complex, they must have been designed by some intelligent agent.

Instead, leaders of the institute's Center for Science and Culture decided on what they consider a compromise. Forget intelligent design, they argued, with its theological implications. Just require teachers to discuss evidence that refutes Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, as well as what supports it. They called it "teach the controversy," and that's become the institute's rallying cry as a leader in the latest efforts to raise doubts about Darwin in school.

Evolution controversies are brewing in eight school districts, half a dozen state legislatures, and three state boards of education, including the one in Kansas, which wrestled with the issue in 1999 as well.

Dr. Stephen Meyer, Director, Center for Science & Culture, The Discovery Institute

"Why fight when you can have a fun discussion?" asks Stephen Meyer, the center's director. The teach-the-controversy approach, he says, avoids "unnecessary constitutional fights" over the separation of church and state, yet also avoids teaching Darwin's theories as dogma. But what the center calls a compromise, most scientists call a creationist agenda that's couched in the language of science. There is no significant controversy to teach, they say.

"You're lying to students if you tell them that scientists are debating whether evolution took place," said Eugenie Scott, director of the National Center for Science Education, a nonprofit group that defends teaching of evolution in school. The Discovery Institute, she said, is leading a public-relations campaign, not a scientific endeavor. The Discovery Institute is one of the leading organizations working nationally to change how evolution is taught. It works as an adviser, resource and sometimes a critic with those who have similar views.

"There are a hundred ways to get this wrong," says Meyer. "And only a few to get them right." Ohio got it right, he says, when its state Board of Education voted in 2002 to require students to learn that scientists "continue to investigate and critically analyze aspects of evolutionary theory."

Scott says it was a small victory at most for intelligent-design supporters, but Meyer considers it a significant one — a model other states should follow. Minnesota has adopted similar language. The School Board in Dover, Pa., however, got it wrong, Meyer said, when it required instruction in intelligent design. (The matter is now in court.)

Intelligent design isn't established enough yet for that, Meyer says. He also criticizes the Georgia school board that put stickers on biology textbooks with a surgeon-general-like warning that evolution is "a theory not a fact." The stickers were a "dumb idea," he says bluntly. (A Georgia court ruled they were illegal, and the case is under appeal.)

In Wisconsin, the institute hopes it helped the School Board in the small town of Grantsburg switch to a teach-the-controversy approach. In each place, the institute says it responds to requests for help, although it's working to become more proactive, too. Some critics suspect the ties are even closer.

Center's beginnings

The Center for Science and Culture opened in 1996 as a part of the already-established Discovery Institute, which also studies more earthbound topics such as transportation, economics, technology, bioethics. Founder Bruce Chapman — who has worked as an official in the Reagan administration, head of the U.S. Census Bureau and Washington's secretary of state — became interested in intelligent design after reading a piece Meyer wrote for The Wall Street Journal.

Meyer, then a philosophy professor at Whitworth College in Spokane, was defending a California professor in trouble for talking about intelligent design in biology class. To Chapman, it was an issue of academic freedom. He invited Meyer to come speak at the institute. The more they talked, the more Chapman and others at the institute became interested in offering a home to Meyer and others interested in intelligent design. Intelligent design appealed to their view that life isn't really as unplanned or unguided as Darwin's theories can make it seem.

"It interested me because it seemed so different than the reductionist science that came out of the 19th century ... that everything could be reduced to chemistry," said John West, a political scientist and center associate director.

The private institute has an annual budget of about $3.2 million, and plans to spend about $1.3 million on the intelligent-design work, Chapman says, mostly to support the work of about three dozen fellows. The Fieldstead Charitable Trust, run by Christian conservative Henry Ahmanson and his wife, is one of the largest donors to that effort. Chapman declines to name more.

Meyer, the center's director, is a tall, friendly man who has undergraduate degrees in geology and physics and a Ph.D. in the philosophy of science from Cambridge, where he wrote his doctorate on the origins of life. He says he's no creationist. He doesn't, for example, believe in a literal reading of the Bible, which would mean the Earth is about 6,000 years old. He doesn't dispute that natural selection played a role in evolution, he just doesn't think it explains everything. He often points to the Cambrian Period, a time more than 500 million years ago when most of the major groups of animals first appear in the fossil record.

Meyer and other Discovery Institute fellows say those groups show up too fast, geologically speaking, to have come about through natural selection. That's one of what they see as controversies they want taught in school.

Scientists, however, say the Cambrian Period may not be completely understood, but that doesn't mean the theory of evolution is in trouble.

"They harp and harp on natural selection, as if natural selection is the only thing that evolutionary biologists deal with," says Scott. "Who knows whether natural selection explains the Cambrian body plans. ... So what?"

Scientists consider Meyer a creationist because he maintains that some unnamed intelligence — and Meyer says he personally thinks it is God — has an active hand in creating some complex parts of life.

"I don't know what else to call it other than creationism," said Michael Zimmerman, a critic and dean at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh.

Meyer, however, says he's a scientist, who starts with scientific evidence, not the Bible. His goal — a big one — is to change the very definition of science so that it doesn't rule out the possibility that an intelligent designer is actively at work.

"Science should be open to whatever cause ... can best explain the data," Meyer says. That would be a major change for science, which limits itself to the natural world.

Scott says it would be a "science stopper." "Once you allow yourself to say God did it, you stop looking for naturalistic explanations. If you stop looking, you won't find them," she says. Scott says science isn't an atheistic world view. In science, she says, "It is equally inappropriate to say God did it, or God had nothing to do with it."

The institute's call to "teach the controversy" meets strong resistance. "There's no controversy about whether living things have common ancestors," Scott said. "There's no controversy about whether natural selection is very important in creating the variety of organisms we have today."

While the institute touts its list of 370 scientists who've signed a statement saying they have some doubts about Darwin's theory of natural selection, Scott's organization, in a parody of that effort, has a list of 500 names limited to scientists named Steve or Stephanie, in honor of the late Stephen Jay Gould, a well-known biologist who once wrote that evolution is "one of the best documented, most compelling and exciting concepts in all of science."

Public opinion is mixed. Many Christian denominations, including Catholics, see no contradiction between evolution and their faith, but a Gallup Poll last November found that only about a third of the respondents think Darwin's theory of evolution is well supported by scientific evidence.

Meyer hopes the Kansas Board of Education will invite the center to speak at its hearings in May. Speakers will be asked to address the issue the center wants to highlight: whether Kansas' science curriculum helps students understand debate over controversial topics such as evolution. Kansas Citizens for Science, however, has urged a boycott of the hearings, saying the proposals have been "rejected by the science community at large."

Urbane Analysis: Too bad Darwin himself is not around these days to explain why his "Theory of Evolution" should no longer have to stand to the scientific method. Intelligent Design does not replace Darwin's theory, in my view, it merely helps make sense of the enormous gaps of time (and knowledge) for which Darwin's theory simply cannot even begin to offer explanation. Intelligent Design is a great moniker. I tend to think of it as "Purpose Driven Evolution." And I'd like very much to have a fun conversation about it with you.

Chuck Darwin: just looking for answers, not seeking deification

A "Letter to the Editor" is practically compulsory when reading a news story like that above. Here's mine:

The way I understand the position of Seattle’s Discovery Institute (“Theory of Intelligent Design: A debate evolves” Times, March 31), Charles Darwin’s scientific work should still be considered a theory – not a law or constant such as thermodynamics or gravity. Discovery is standing up for scientists with an open mind, who have stated “(w)e are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life.” It seems to me these scientists are saying, at the root of it all, they are awed by what they find through science – and through that find evidence for a creator.

In response, the National Center for Science Education (“NCSE”) parodies their efforts, using the memory of the late Stephen Jay Gould, the Harvard biologist who actually taught Darwin’s theory in its appropriate context – as a theory utilizing scientific method. Comparing the two organizations, clearly Discovery is on the academic high ground here.

As far as the “Project Steve” parody in support of immutability status for Darwin’s theory, can NCSE really say that eminent Cambridge theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking is on their side when he wrote in “A Brief History of Time” that “(t)he usual approach of science of constructing a mathematical model cannot answer the questions of why there should be a universe for the model to describe… If we find the answer to that (a complete theory of the universe), it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason – for then we would know the mind of God.”

From that statement alone, Stephen Hawking belongs on the Discovery Institute’s “complexity of life” list, not engaged in goofy parody. I am proud of the Discovery Institute for standing up to the neo-flat earth academic establishment, and for injecting life into principles of academic freedom.

Post Script: Those brave enough to even raise a fully scientific peer-review discussion about intelligent design risk retaliation (and career destruction - and notice the victim here is NOT an ID supporter, but merely the editor of a periodical) from the "culture" of the atheistic "scientific establishment" - as outlined in this report from the Wall Street Journal:

The Branding of a Heretic: Are religious scientists unwelcome at the Smithsonian?

BY DAVID KLINGHOFFER
Friday, January 28, 2005

The question of whether Intelligent Design (ID) may be presented to public-school students alongside neo-Darwinian evolution has roiled parents and teachers in various communities lately. Whether ID may be presented to adult scientific professionals is another question altogether but also controversial. It is now roiling the government-supported Smithsonian Institution, where one scientist has had his career all but ruined over it.

The scientist is Richard Sternberg, a research associate at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History in Washington. The holder of two Ph.D.s in biology, Mr. Sternberg was until recently the managing editor of a nominally independent journal published at the museum, Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, where he exercised final editorial authority. The August issue included typical articles on taxonomical topics--e.g., on a new species of hermit crab. It also included an atypical article, "The Origin of Biological Information and the Higher Taxonomic Categories."

Here was trouble. The piece happened to be the first peer-reviewed article to appear in a technical biology journal laying out the evidential case for Intelligent Design. According to ID theory, certain features of living organisms--such as the miniature machines and complex circuits within cells--are better explained by an unspecified designing intelligence than by an undirected natural process like random mutation and natural selection.

Mr. Sternberg's editorship has since expired, as it was scheduled to anyway, but his future as a researcher is in jeopardy--and that he had not planned on at all. He has been penalized by the museum's Department of Zoology, his religious and political beliefs questioned. He now rests his hope for vindication on his complaint filed with the U.S. Office of Special Counsel (OSC) that he was subjected to discrimination on the basis of perceived religious beliefs. A museum spokesman confirms that the OSC is investigating. Says Mr. Sternberg: "I'm spending my time trying to figure out how to salvage a scientific career."

The offending review-essay was written by Stephen Meyer, who holds a Cambridge University doctorate in the philosophy of biology. In the article, he cites biologists and paleontologists critical of certain aspects of Darwinism--mainstream scientists at places like the University of Chicago, Yale, Cambridge and Oxford.

Mr. Meyer gathers the threads of their comments to make his own case. He points, for example, to the Cambrian explosion 530 million years ago, when between 19 and 34 animal phyla (body plans) sprang into existence. He argues that, relying on only the Darwinian mechanism, there was not enough time for the necessary genetic "information" to be generated.

ID, he believes, offers a better explanation.

Whatever the article's ultimate merits--beyond the judgment of a layman--it was indeed subject to peer review, the gold standard of academic science. Not that such review saved Mr. Sternberg from infamy. Soon after the article appeared, Hans Sues--the museum's No. 2 senior scientist--denounced it to colleagues and then sent a widely forwarded e-mail calling it "unscientific garbage."

Meanwhile, the chairman of the Zoology Department, Jonathan Coddington, called Mr. Sternberg's supervisor. According to Mr. Sternberg's OSC complaint: "First, he asked whether Sternberg was a religious fundamentalist. She told him no. Coddington then asked if Sternberg was affiliated with or belonged to any religious organization. . . . He then asked where Sternberg stood politically; . . . he asked, 'Is he a right-winger? What is his political affiliation?'

" The supervisor (who did not return my phone messages) recounted the conversation to Mr. Sternberg, who also quotes her observing: "There are Christians here, but they keep their heads down."

Worries about being perceived as "religious" spread at the museum. One curator, who generally confirmed the conversation when I spoke to him, told Mr. Sternberg about a gathering where he offered a Jewish prayer for a colleague about to retire. The curator fretted: "So now they're going to think that I'm a religious person, and that's not a good thing at the museum."

In October, as the OSC complaint recounts, Mr. Coddington told Mr. Sternberg to give up his office and turn in his keys to the departmental floor, thus denying him access to the specimen collections he needs. Mr. Sternberg was also assigned to the close oversight of a curator with whom he had professional disagreements unrelated to evolution. "I'm going to be straightforward with you," said Mr. Coddington, according to the complaint. "Yes, you are being singled out." Neither Mr. Coddington nor Mr. Sues returned repeated phone messages asking for their version of events.

Mr. Sternberg begged a friendly curator for alternative research space, and he still works at the museum. But many colleagues now ignore him when he greets them in the hall, and his office sits empty as "unclaimed space." Old colleagues at other institutions now refuse to work with him on publication projects, citing the Meyer episode. The Biological Society of Washington released a vaguely ecclesiastical statement regretting its association with the article. It did not address its arguments but denied its orthodoxy, citing a resolution of the American Association for the Advancement of Science that defined ID as, by its very nature, unscientific.

It may or may not be, but surely the matter can be debated on scientific grounds, responded to with argument instead of invective and stigma. Note the circularity: Critics of ID have long argued that the theory was unscientific because it had not been put forward in a peer-reviewed scientific journal. Now that it has, they argue that it shouldn't have been because it's unscientific. They banish certain ideas from certain venues as if by holy writ, and brand heretics too. In any case, the heretic here is Mr. Meyer, a fellow at Seattle's Discovery Institute, not Mr. Sternberg, who isn't himself an advocate of Intelligent Design.
According to the OSC complaint, one museum specialist chided him by saying: "I think you are a religiously motivated person and you have dragged down the Proceedings because of your religiously motivated agenda." Definitely not, says Mr. Sternberg. He is a Catholic who attends Mass but notes: "I would call myself a believer with a lot of questions, about everything. I'm in the postmodern predicament."

Intelligent Design, in any event, is hardly a made-to-order prop for any particular religion. When the British atheist philosopher Antony Flew made news this winter by declaring that he had become a deist--a believer in an unbiblical "god of the philosophers" who takes no notice of our lives--he pointed to the plausibility of ID theory.

Darwinism, by contrast, is an essential ingredient in secularism, that aggressive, quasi-religious faith without a deity. The Sternberg case seems, in many ways, an instance of one religion persecuting a rival, demanding loyalty from anyone who enters one of its churches--like the National Museum of Natural History.

Magnolia Library Gets Set For Twenty First Century Transformation

Magnolia Library Gets Set For Twenty First Century Transformation
P. Scott Cummins © 2005 The Urbane R

The theme of Seattle’s 1962 World’s Fair was “Century 21.” Look around today at the major public buildings in our city – from Fisher Plaza to City Hall, Experience Music Project to the Washington State Convention Center – our city’s architecture has become a reflection of that space age theme. Our Magnolia Library has a place in making that happen: as one of the first public buildings commissioned after the World’s Fair – the bold Asian-modern design signaled wider public acceptance of that style in public buildings. Think about that next time you are sitting down to an Asia-Pacific inspired feast at Wild Ginger.

Flash-forward forty-some years and our library is one of the busiest small libraries in the city. It performs admirably in a variety of missions, from celebrating literacy and kindling a love of leaning in toddlers, providing research tools for lifelong learners, and serving as a friendly community crossroads. All in a small, even intimate, community setting. Designated a landmark building in 2001, it was included in the “Libraries for All” bond issue passed in 1998 to update (and in some cases, replace) facilities, improve technology, and add to collections. Most notable has been completion of the new downtown library. There are other eye-catching examples though, like the soon-to-be-completed Ballard branch library. If you like bold architecture, well, then this is your kind of town.

A quick visit to HistoryLink.org on the subject of our local library was interesting, but not surprising. Like most really good things done in this community over the years – Magnolia’s library was the dream of not-to-be-messed-with mothers - who got tired of the limitations of the bookmobile during World War II. These Magnolia moms, who also started cooperative preschools during this time so that they could get to work on behalf of the war effort, were not about to use up precious gasoline ration coupons to drive clear over to Ballard and Queen Anne just to check out books. So they took over a derelict tavern building at 32nd and McGraw, and made it into a library. Convert a derelict tavern into a place of community pride that celebrates art, literacy and culture. Hmm, can we meet with our jogger strollers over next to US Bank on 30th? We’ve got another derelict tavern to convert, stay-at-home parents invited to lead the charge, just like in ’42.

And these moms (really, some things never change around here) did that library up in inimitable Magnolia style: knocking out walls, painting, bringing in proper tables and chairs. But that wasn’t all. No, not nearly, this is Magnolia, remember? They then went over to the Seattle Art Museum, and walked away with “loaned” works of art to decorate the place! The Library Board got the message: within two years they took over the lease. That little library had almost 4,000 patrons borrowing on a regular basis in the 1940’s. Clearly, those moms knew their market, and how to execute on a business plan.

So, like any successful business venture, they expanded. In 1959 the library moved into a former Safeway grocery store at 34th and McGraw – even while planning was underway for a “landmark” location of architectural significance and importance. Legendary Seattle architect Paul Hayden Kirk studied the site of our current library, at 34th and Armour – and in a remarkable early display of progressive environmental consciousness – designed around the ancient Madrone tree at the corner there. True to form (yet again) of Magnolia values and priorities, our Community Club established a library art fund to commission pieces for the facility, and they did so before it had even been opened.

Thanks to consistent vision and devoted patrons, the current Magnolia library has served us well since 1964. In the months ahead you will have opportunity to share your “hopes and dreams” for the library remodel - directly with the designers and project managers for the renovation - slated for 2007. But you can go right now to the library and ask for help in accessing their website www.spl.org and comment directly about this project.

The Magnolia library renovation is an ambitious project, its scope will “(a)ssess feasibility of expanding 5,904-square-foot branch by 1,800 square feet. The renovation will include upgraded technology services and equipment, better electrical, communication and computer connections, more efficient circulation desk and work areas, improved ventilation, new carpeting, energy-efficient windows throughout and an updated book collection.”

What would really benefit our community for another generation is simple: a burgeoning group of community heroes to step up and get involved with making this a successful project. Here’s the good news: it all won’t fall on your shoulders. There is a group called Friends of the Library - that has done the really hard work of organizing and providing a means to take advantage of your contributions. And like Magnolia community volunteer/auctioneer extraordinaire Rene Spatz says: there are no fundraising goals in Magnolia which cannot be achieved if really rocking parties are involved. So pass that pitcher of Margaritas and let’s make this library project really exciting!

(P. Scott Cummins is a Magnolia-based parent, writer, community volunteer, and native tree planter - always happy to party for a good cause.)

"Human Rights Watch" More Concerned About Condoms Than Killings

The Kaiser Family Foundation reports today that Human Rights Watch (HRW) is in full attack mode about the mere specter of abstinence-based education in Uganda:

The New York-based advocacy group Human Rights Watch in a report released on Wednesday criticized the Ugandan government for "making a worrying shift" toward focusing its HIV/AIDS prevention efforts on U.S.-funded abstinence-only education programs, in effect undermining efforts to promote condom use, the AP/Independent Online reports. In the 80-page report -- titled "The Less They Know, the Better: Abstinence-Only HIV/AIDS Programs in Uganda" -- HRW accuses Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni and his wife, Janet, of "falling under the influence of U.S. Christian conservatives" and putting "millions" of Ugandan residents at risk of contracting HIV by focusing primarily on abstinence in prevention programs, according to the AP/Independent Online (Wasswa, AP/Independent Online, 3/29).

This captures perfectly the priorities of Liberals: they would rather prattle on in an 80 page report against abstinence education in a country - while completely ignoring that the dictator there is murdering and terrorizing his political oponents, as noted here and here in just this past week alone.

Meanwhile, Kaiser seriously undercuts the premise of the so-called "Human" Rights Watch report, noting:

Officials and church leaders in Uganda called the HRW report "seriously flawed," saying it lacks "factual basis," according to the AP/Independent Online (AP/Independent Online, 3/29). "The president and the first lady are being misunderstood," Museveni spokesperson Onapito Ekomoloit said, adding, "They have been consistent in advocating for a multipronged approach. [Museveni] says those who are sexually active should be faithful. Others should abstain, and those who cannot abstain should use condoms" (Guardian, 3/30). Dr. Alex Opio, assistant commissioner for Uganda's National Disease Control, said there has been "no change" in the government's approach to HIV/AIDS prevention, according to NewVision/AllAfrica.com. "The government policy is A for abstinence, B for be faithful and C for condoms," he said (New Vision/AllAfrica.com, 3/28). Opio also denied that the Ugandan government "discourag[es]" the use of condoms, adding that it imports 80 million of the 120 million condoms used in the country annually, according to AFP/Yahoo! News (AFP/Yahoo! News, 3/29).

HIV/AIDS education succeeds in Uganda utilizing the A-B-C method

Urbane Analysis: When I was in Uganda this past year, visiting two to three schools every day for two solid weeks, it was made clear to me (time and again) that the A-B-C approach to HIV/AIDS prevention education was what they use. Everywhere. Without exception. Got that, "Human" Rights Watch? Catch a clue: Uganda is in human rights meltdown. Get to work protecting human life, you can opine on behalf of false alarms designed to shake the money tree all you want (for all I care) AFTER the hit squads are cleaned out and true oppositon-based (can you say... Forum for Democratic Change) fair elections are part of the political fabric. Transparency, accountability, do these things mean anything to HRW - if you recall, we Americans just had an election about VALUES, not Liberal-Fundamentalist canards.

Marburg Outbreak Breeds Fear in Angola Hospitals

What a killer looks like...

When this bad boy shows up in your electron microscope, you WILL know fear!

Mar 30, 2005 — By Zoe Eisenstein

LUANDA (Reuters) - Amid fears the deadly Marburg virus may reach Angola's capital, staff at state hospitals in tatters after a ruinous civil war said on Wednesday the government must do more to protect them.

"Of course we're all panicking. Everyone's scared, there's no cure for Marburg," said a male nurse at one government hospital in Luanda who requested anonymity.

The viral hemorrhagic fever — characterized by headaches, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea accompanied by blood — is spread through bodily fluids including saliva and perspiration.

Medical workers who may have direct contact with potentially infected patients are advised to exercise the most caution, but staff said not enough was being done to ensure staff safety.

"The government should be doing a lot more to protect us. In some hospitals, medical workers aren't even wearing protective clothing," said the nurse.

"In private institutions the preventative measures are much more rigorous. In state hospitals I'm not sure they've got the means to protect us," added a female colleague.

The latest figures available show the disease had killed 117 out of 124 people known to be infected by Tuesday. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta says the usual death rate is 23 percent to 25 percent, but few infected patients are reported to have recovered this outbreak. There is no known cure.

While all the known cases have originated from Angola's northern Uige province, medical workers in Luanda said they could not be sure Marburg had not already spread to the capital, only 150 km (100 miles) southwest of Uige province.

"Luanda's the province where it's most likely to spread to. Maybe it already has, but hasn't been registered yet," the male nurse said. "Many sick people are refusing to go to hospital because they think if they do, they'll catch the disease."

Angola has told people who have visited Uige to stay in Angola for at least 21 days — the virus's incubation period Nearby countries have scrambled to stop Marburg spreading.

The Democratic Republic of Congo, Republic of Congo, Zambia and Namibia took steps to prevent infected people crossing borders.

Further afield, Kenyan health authorities are on alert for Marburg, and may consider screening air passengers from Angola.

SHATTERED HEALTH SYSTEM

The outbreak has highlighted the deep cracks in Angola's health system three years after the end of a 27-year civil war.

"The medical sector is already very bad, and now we have got a real emergency on our hands. This epidemic is going to weaken it even more," said the female nurse.

Luanda's oil-driven expatriate community is worried and even though most companies say it is business as usual, sources say some executives have provisionally booked plane seats out.

"There is certainly, among some communities here, a movement of panic that is not justified by the situation. But there exists a certain risk and precautions need to be taken," said Pierre-Francois Pirlot, resident representative of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP).

The U.N. told staff this week to defer non-essential travel to Uige and urged those already there to be careful and avoid physical contact especially with people in health facilities.

But an official at one of the U.N. agencies said even personnel working in the capital had been told to step up personal hygiene, avoid kissing or shaking hands.

(Additional reporting by Katie Nguyen in Nairobi)

Urbane Analysis: This is deadly serious, and underscores the shaky nature of work on issues in Africa. The point is that this is not an Africa issue: it is a greed, corruption and hatred issue. This is not something that Nongovernmental Organizations (NGOs), even the most effective and efficient among them, can prevent from happening - simply because outsiders cannot create an entire health care system for regimes which care not to bother. This illness does not happen where the most basic levels of health care are delivered, where people are allowed to go about the normal processes of agriculture and mercantile relationships - in other words, this does not happen where bad people are prevented from gaining control over society. You can forget the usual liberal conspiracies: feel-good, hand-me-down, liberal cast-off grant-and-aid mentality does no good here. In fact, they perpetuate the problem. Those people who care - need to break the cycle of co-dependence with dictatorial regimes. Bill Clinton's apologies are good for jack squat when it comes to solving these issues. Jimmy Carter never did a damn thing to make this situation improve one iota. Feeling bad about the situation never did anything to help it - just look at Rwanda in 1994.

But George W. Bush makes these bad guy dictators squirm - and jet off to see their Paris doctors to get more COX-2 Specific NSAIDs. Capiche?

Urbane R update: One week later, and things are looking a whole lot worse off.

This report from the New York Times indicates that the health mega-NGO Medicins sans Frontieres/Doctors Without Borders (MSF/DWB) has called for hospitals to be shut down in a last-ditch effort to contain the spread of Marburg. Monica de Castellarnau of MSF/DWB says her organization is calling for the curtailment of health care for thousands - by closing down hospitals across wide areas - in order to do what? The answer is clear, save tens of thousands (and maybe more) potential victims of this incredibly deadly virus:

"The hospital has been the main source of infection," she said. "We have to break that chain somehow. It is a massive public health decision, and it must be taken by the government."

Angola's outbreak of Marburg virus, a close and equally deadly relative of the better-known Ebola, is the largest ever recorded, and continues to spread. The disease, which causes a high fever, diarrhea, vomiting and bleeding from bodily orifices, has no effective treatment. Nine out of every 10 victims here have died, usually within a week of falling ill..

This is an incredibly important news story. And the media is barely reporting on it. It proves that the media learned absolutely nothing after Rwanda in 1994.

But the media is not entirely to blame - where is the World Health Organization (WHO) in all of this? What about asking for help from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention? Pardon the cynicism, but it must be asked of the WHO, are you absolutely powerless without outside agencies mandating your involvement?

This weekend, a Reuters report indicates that WHO has halted operations in Angola - due to security concerns. Isn't there something in your budget that provides any kind of line item to act, say under "Pandemic, Virulent"? WHO: when are you going to do something, anything - when the airlines start bringing Marburg cases into Paris, Amsterdam, Frankfurt, London and Lisbon? Wouldn't that be just a little inadvisable?

This report and commentary from Professor Henry L. Niman of Recombinomics Corporation indicates that this strain of Marburg has now spread across international boundaries to Zaire - with six deaths reported there so far. That is an enormous negative development. But Niman, a world expert in infectious disease, is particularly concerned as the outbreaks spread southward toward Angola's capital city, Luanda:

"These two cases highlight the difficulties in treating these patients and monitoring contacts. Controlling the spread of the virus in the slums near Luanda will be particularly challenging because of a high population density, and an increase in the number of people who want to leave the area. Thus, as the virus radiates out from Uige, controlling spread via contact tracing and quarantine will be increasingly difficult."

What about when the virus crosses over into Congo, and health care workers can effectvely do absolutely nothing to contain it? Contact tracing and quarantine in the Congo? How many mirror-lensed Colonels (with AK-47 toting "professionals" in tow) will have to be paid off in order to accomplish that in one small town, much less across a wide area? What will the WHO do when the disease spans from one crowded city teeming with slums filled with desperately poor people (Luanda) across an international border comprising two enormous cities - full of even more desperately poor people ( Kinshasa/Brazzaville) - watch it spread upriver throughout the entire Congo basin? And what about the panic that will spread throughout every country that borders Congo? That's a whole lot of panic. Trust me, you don't want to see that.

This report from the New York Times outlines that fear and panic have overtaken reason in Angola - even as the number of cases has grown from thirty to over two hundred (at last report this weekend, some twenty five more in twenty four hours).

"It's becoming a huge problem," said Dick Thompson, a spokesman for the World Health Organization, which has dispatched surveillance teams to the country's northern provinces. "We clearly don't know the dimensions of the outbreak." Health officials said some Angolans are hiding sick relatives out of fear that they will die if taken to the hospitals, thereby increasing the chance the disease will spread.

A state of panic has descended in some areas - to the point that those who come to help are instead viewed as purveyors of the illness' deadly affect:

As field workers tried to trace suspected cases in two Uige neighborhoods Thursday, townspeople threw stones at them, accusing them of killing people who had been taken away sick and who were returned to them dead. The violence forced the health workers to suspend their checks, according to officials from the World Health Organization and Doctors Without Borders. The government has dispatched soldiers to the province but so far made only a limited effort to educate an increasingly terrified public.

Until they decide to become truly effective on this outbreak, the WHO might want to file this under another heading: "Disaster, Prescription for"

Thanks a lot, Lads.

So, to sum it all up: United Nations administration of Angola has rendered the worst health conditions on the planet - and an outbreak of the virulent Marburg virus - that is breaking out in wide areas, even across international borders.

This is a disasterous situation. I shudder to think that the U.S. is going to get handed this one after the UN botched it all so horribly. The U.S. military is equipped to handle this kind of situation - but we shouldn't have to risk another Mogadishu in order to clean up the UN's mess. The American people won't risk that, and won't stand for it. But we should be LOUD in the clarification of what led to this situation. Given the cost to American taxpayers in funding, and the poor of the world in suffering, can this planet tolerate much more of what the UN is doing to it?

Seventeen Magazine: Giving Faith Guidance To Young Readers

At the tail end of a very long Easter Weekend, I settled down to relax a while, watching CNBC's "Topic[A] with Tina Brown" and found her conducting a very compelling interview with Seventeen Magazine Editor-in-Chief Editor-in-Chief Atoosa Rubenstein.


Now I have to admit, Ms. Rubenstein immediately captured my attention - before I even knew what she was talking about. But then I noticed her subject was MY daughter.

Well, in figurative sense anyway, because she was earnestly describing the solid trend underlying deep spirituality in today's young girls - the target readership of Seventeen. And that certainly describes my eleven year old - deeply spiritual -and very into fashion/music/popular culture - all of your normal pre-teen daughter kind of stuff. Only my daughter has dozens of music CDs by Christian artists, reads her bible daily, and prays with her friends - at school. And twice a day with her parents. And talks with Jesus like He's in the room (He is). And believes that faith is the activating component in healing. And pictures herself (sometimes) being a minister someday. And belongs to two different Christian youth groups - and so has an active circle of almost fifty kids who are right there with her. Which, all told, makes her a pretty mainstream American eleven year old girl of the early twenty first century.

Rubenstein talked about how for many years she was intrigued by why so many reader e-mails signed-off with "God Bless" at the end. That really surprised her. Like, her generation never did that. Why were so many young girls bringing up God. How strange. So this intrigued her. And she wanted to respond to it. I mean, like, that is her business, after all. Right? And how she had pitched the idea for this at her former magazine (more about that here. CosmoGirl! - Cosmo for girls? Scary.) but without success, and only brought out the spirituality column this past summer - after becoming the big boss at Seventeen. So this column she writes has stirred up all kinds of coverage. Articles are being written. She even landed a television interview with Tina Brown.

Faith: a very shrewd move. A good play. Seventeen scores with the readership once again. Everybody's happy. Right?

Here's the point of this post: Seventeen scrupulously maintains a value-neutral position on the MANY religious perspectives presented in their magazine. So kids are getting equal doses of Bah'ai - and Zoroastrianism. Wicca is presented alongside Christianity.

Don't get me wrong: I am a Scout leader and respect all people of faith and their right to worship. It was through Scouting, as a teenager, that I met Muslim young people for the first time. Those experiences prepared me well for the complex sensitivities required when traveling in the Holy Land - after graduating from high school. And helped me ask the BIG questions which deepened my belief in Jesus Christ, as nurtured by my parents.

And that's why I suggest parents get active in discussion of faith and spirituality with their children. And likewise, with respect, suggest they get off the "whatever" drift current - which may have characterized their spiritual upbringing.

Because that's NOT how our kids are wired these days. Children today are seekers. Intellectually AND spiritually curious. Don't leave it to a magazine to answer that curiousity. Take your child (and yourself) on a spirit quest. I know where that leads me: to church.

Kids today have a deep spritual yearning. Over the course of the interview, Rubenstein pointed out that their parents (and their former president) have allowed them to have "too much information" and not enough context. And that children embrace faith to find order amidst the chaos.

Rubenstein, who was raised in the Muslim faith, knows how to capture popular culture trends. That's her job. It is up to today's parents, who arguably came up through childhood in a spiritual "trough" - to keep up with their kids yearning curiousity during this period of "peak" interest in faith and spirituality.

Christian groups are (once again) coming late to the table on this important topic. But do check out this youth-culture perspective on the issue from the Christian youth magazine Teen Mania Ministries:

Seventeen's "Faith" Section Opens the Door for Religious Expression

Today's generation of young people are desperate for answers to the deeper questions of life and Seventeen magazine has responded to their cries. In an attempt to offer answers to the spiritually hungry, this teen glamour magazine has gone where they've never gone before. Slipped in-between pages filled with beauty tips and celebrity gossip lies a new section on "Faith."

Seventeen's readers now have the opportunity to share their own opinions on certain religious topics, read inspirational quotes, and tell personal stores of spiritual struggles. An immediate favorite among Seventeen magazine's 14-million readers, this section has a serious tone, discussing real-life issues openly.

The person behind it all is Seventeen magazine's editor-in-chief, Atoosa Rubenstein. Raised Muslim, she began the faith section not to spread a religious message, but provide an opportunity to discuss issues important to teenage girls, noticing that "more and more of our readers were talking about their faith."

Laurie Whaley, who works for the division of publishers that created Revolve (a top-selling Bible for girls that looks like a fashion magazine) was impressed that Seventeen was addressing religion in any form. She predicted it would attract readers. "The teen culture today, they're very, very much about faith," Whaley said.

Experts on religion and youth trends agree. Teenage Research Unlimited found that 58% of teens rank faith as among the most important parts of their life.

Rubenstein formed an interfaith advisory board for guidance, which includes two Christian ministers, a Catholic priest, Rabbi, Buddhist teacher, and two Muslims.

One of the board members is Fred Allen of Burning Bush Ministries, who said the wide-range of faiths is fine with him. He believes the magazine is "providing the truth to set its readers free."
"I'm not worried about Christianity getting lost," Allen said, "and I'm so glad that Seventeen is even allowing honest and genuine expression of faith from the Christian perspective to show up on their pages. (I think, in the long run), Jesus gains a lot of ground."

Seventeen's faith section provides a safe place for teens to boldly discuss their beliefs and their Christian readers have risen to the occasion. There's remains a stark contrast between comments of hopelessness and despair and the response of a born-again Christian, whose words radiate with hope and joy. Although a seeking reader may not be led to salvation, this new section provides the potential to get them thinking.

"We talk to a big portion of the young women of this country, and this is what they're interested in, and no one else is talking to them about it," Rubenstein said. "I think that kids today want and need answers, because they live in a very complicated world."

But is it safe for teens to turn to Seventeen magazine for answers? This new faith section not only represents Christian values, but also those of Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, and whoever else has an opinion.

Yes, Seventeen's faith section does provide an opportunity for Christians to speak out, but will the Biblical truths shared be considered "just another good opinion"? With no acknowledgement of absolute truth, this melting pot of worldviews can have a dangerous influence on the vulnerable teens who are on a quest for God. Presented with a smorgasbord of religious beliefs, teens can pick and choose whatever pleasant-sounding doctrine they like, coming to their own self-determined opinion of truth.

Although this recent addition to Seventeen magazine opens the doors for religious expression, it provides no easy way to discern Truth from post-modern deception. It will either open young people's eyes to the Truth, or lead them further from it.

Check out teens' responses to Seventeen's faith-based questions for yourself, updated regularly at www.seventeen.com/bigquestion

Urbane Analysis: Seventeen Magazine gives parents plenty enough to worry about as it is...

Blair & Bush: It's All About Rapport

Whether you see Tony Blair and George Bush like this:


Or tend toward a mixed metaphor-kind-of-thing:


One thing is certain, while unlike the maker of goofy video clips about George Bush and Tony Blair singing "Endless Love" (click below) - the two leaders no doubt have a great deal of respect for one another, if not affection in a "we're just blokes" sort of way. But no doubt about this: they are in harmony with one another!

London Daily Telegraph: Regime of tyranny and torture back to haunt Uganda

WARNING: This news story from the London Daily Telegraph online edition contains graphic descriptions of violence, sexual abuse, and human rights violations alleged against the Ugandan security services.

Regime of tyranny and torture back to haunt Uganda
By Adrian Blomfield in Kampala (Filed: 19/03/2005)

Suspected dissidents disappear after midnight visits to their homes; chilling screams can again be heard from Idi Amin's infamous torture chambers, reopened after a quarter of a century of disuse. From the few that escape come tales of punishment beatings and even mass executions.
Welcome to President Yoweri Museveni's Uganda. One of Britain's favourite African states in recent years has, almost unnoticed in the West, become a sinister land where a corrupt regime uses its secret police to rule through fear.


President Yoweri Museveni

The reasons for this transition are not hard to fathom. Mr Museveni has ruled Uganda since 1986, when his rebels marched triumphantly into the capital Kampala. Many of his countrymen believe he now wants to recast himself as that most African of leaders: a president for life.

Signalling his intent to jettison the vestigial trappings of democracy his government still professes, Mr Museveni has set out to remove a constitutional provision that prevents him from standing in elections next year.

Not all Ugandans are keen on the idea, but the government has ways of making them change their mind.

Last year, Yasin, a taxi driver who occasionally chauffeured a senior opposition official around the countryside, was woken by a loud rapping at his door a few hours before dawn. The men who had come to arrest him were not policemen, but members of the widely feared Chieftaincy of Military Intelligence (CMI).

Yasin knew that the CMI, a shadowy spy agency directly answerable to the president, had no powers to arrest anybody. But he also knew better than to question his captors.

He was taken to Makindye barracks, where some of the worst atrocities of Amin's infamous State Research Bureau, which used to force inmates to beat each other to death with sledgehammers, took place in the 1970s.

"Every day for a week, they would hang me upside down and beat me with clubs," Yasin said. "They wanted to know names of people working for the opposition. I kept saying I didn't know any, but they wouldn't believe me."

On his third day, Yasin watched as a fellow inmate, an elderly man accused of recruiting for the main opposition alliance, the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC), was killed using a method known as "Liverpool". The victim's head was placed in a bag that was repeatedly filled with water. To breathe, he had to drink it all, but the more he drank, the more bloated his belly became until his innards ruptured and he died in a pool of his own urine.

The official existence of political parties was only allowed last year, under considerable western pressure. Until then Mr Museveni operated what he called a no-party system, in which every Ugandan belonged to an entity known as The Movement, which was headed by the president.
In theory, the philosophy was supposed to rid Uganda of the ethnic and political divisions that helped cause the civil wars and dictatorships that characterised much of the country's history since independence from Britain in 1962. In practice it has allowed Mr Museveni to exert total control over most of his people.

The leader of the FDC, Kizza Besigye, in exile in South Africa, has instructed his campaigners to dole out copies of Animal Farm during party rallies.

But most people are too frightened to attend. Secret police infiltrate the rallies, noting down those who attend. It is usually supporters and low ranking FDC members who are taken to Makindye.

As a means of spreading fear, it is an extremely effective method.

Philip and his wife Juliet were picked up in January, accused of renting out their hall south of the capital for an opposition meeting.

Like many fellow suspects, they were accused of supporting the People's Redemption Army (PRA), a shadowy rebel outfit the government links to the FDC. The Foreign Office Minister, Chris Mullin, says that it is likely the PRA does not exist.

"Every night I was hung upside down over a pit of snakes while my wife was raped by army officers," said Philip, who was held in Room 21 of Mbale Police Station, another Amin torture chamber. "One time we had to move five dead bodies into a truck. Another time I was made to dig my own grave." Like Yasin, Philip and Juliet were released. Their captors told them to report what had happened to fellow villagers, but threatened them with death if they told anyone else.

Certainly things are not as bad as they were under Amin, who killed half-a-million people in eight years of bloodshed. Mr Museveni remains popular in many quarters for bringing stability to the country.

The president was long seen as an African role model in the West for his willingness to introduce economic reforms demanded by the World Bank.

But many donors are now disgusted both by the repression and by the corruption in Mr Museveni's cabinet, many of whom are relatives of the president. "Museveni hoodwinked many donors for a long time and people wanted to see the glass as half full," a diplomat said. "We are now learning our lesson."

But that lesson may have come too late. A gang of young thugs, known as the Kalangala Action Plan (KAP), is allegedly preparing to disrupt the elections. Styled on the youth wing of President Robert Mugabe's Zanu-PF party in Zimbabwe, the KAP was an effective tool of intimidation during flawed 2001 elections won by Mr Museveni.

With an even greater risk of defeat if elections are free and fair, diplomats fear that the KAP could be responsible for serious violence and compound Uganda's human rights reputation still further.

Urbane Analysis: Note to mainstream media - remember "The Year of Living Dangerously"? Why does journalism exist but to cover stories of epic import? Uganda is leaning toward a tipping point. That's right, Uganda: the darling of Britain and the U.S. for twenty years. And here's a clue: it is all about greed, corruption, and the ruling culture's values. Are you going to cover this story, or wait until the bullets fly and machete' do their worst, and then whine about government intransigence? Just one element of Uganda's crisis in governance (the child slave-soldiers of a rebel faction in the north) takes number one (worst) spot on the United Nation's "Ten Stories The World Should Hear More About" - that alone is a clue to the state of human rights in Uganda:

Uganda: Child soldiers at centre of mounting humanitarian crisis



With an armed rebellion threatening to undermine Uganda’s progress to economic development, child soldiers emerge as central figures amid deadly violence and growing humanitarian emergency.

The bustling capital city of Kampala, located in the south, exemplifies Uganda’s transformation from a country plagued by economic decay to prosperity. With a revitalized GDP growth of more than 8% over the past three years, Uganda comes across as a compelling story of hope for other African nations. However, an armed insurgency in northern and eastern Uganda has created one of Africa’s largest displaced populations.

The 18-year old rebellion of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) against the government has forced over 1.6 million Ugandans - half of them children - to flee to squalid and overcrowded camps in order to escape wanton attacks and killings. The number of internally displaced persons has almost tripled since 2002. Attacks on soft civilian targets continue, carried out by child soldiers much younger than their victims.

The most disturbing aspect of this humanitarian crisis is the fact that this is a war fought by children on children - minors make up almost 90% of the LRA’s soldiers.

Some recruits are as young as eight and are inducted through raids on villages. They are brutalized and forced to commit atrocities on fellow abductees and even siblings. Those who attempt to escape are killed. For those living in a state of constant fear, violence becomes a way of life and the psychological trauma is incalculable. Fearing abduction, streams of children, often with mothers in tow, leave their homes every night and walk for hours from surrounding villages to reach the relative safety of major towns, only to trek their way home in the first light. Some 40,000 “night commuters” sleep under verandas, in schools, hospital courtyards or bus parking places to evade the snare of the LRA.

Since the rebellion began in the 1980s, some 30,000 children have been abducted to work as child soldiers and porters, or to serve as “wives” of rebels and bear their children. These numbers have soared, with 10,000 children abducted in the past 18 months alone.

Despite the gravity of the humanitarian situation, less than 10% of the $130 million requested by the humanitarian community for 2004 has been received. In some areas, malnutrition rates as high as 30% have been recorded among children. Fear of rebel attacks badly hit the planting season for 2004, threatening to aggravate the already severe food shortages in the coming months. Health facilities barely function as stocks run out and health workers flee to escape LRA attacks.

Even as a peace process makes significant progress in neighbouring Sudan, the peace in Uganda is made tenuous by these developments. The “success story” that Uganda represents in the minds of the world’s economic policy makers presents a jarring contrast with the tragedy of conflict in the north and east that shows no signs of abating.

For further information:
Mr. Christian Boatswain, Political Affairs Officer, UN Department of Political Affairs (DPA) Tel: (1 212) 963-0219; E-mail: mailto:boatswain@un.org
Ms. Stephanie Bunker, Spokesperson (New York), UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) Tel: (1 917) 367-5126; E-mail: bunker@un.org ;
Mr Agostinho Zacarias, Chief, Coordination, Advocacy and Programme Development Unit UN Office of the Special Adviser on Africa Tel: (1 212) 963-8435; E-mail: zaccarias@un.org ;
Mr. Henrik Haggstrom, Acting Chief, Outreach Unit Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict Tel: (1 212) 963-0879, E-mail: mailto:haggstrom@un.org

Africa: Where Faith Thrives

New York Times OP-ED COLUMNIST
Where Faith Thrives
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

DETE CROSSING, Zimbabwe — So with Easter approaching, here I am in the heart of Christendom.

That's right - Africa. One of the most important trends reshaping the world is the decline of Christianity in Europe and its rise in Africa and other parts of the developing world, including Asia and Latin America.

I stopped at a village last Sunday morning here in Zimbabwe - and found not a single person to interview, for everyone had hiked off to church a dozen miles away. And then I dropped by a grocery store with a grim selection of the cheapest daily necessities - and huge multicolored chocolate Easter eggs.

On Easter, more Anglicans will attend church in Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania and Uganda - each - than Anglicans and Episcopalians together will attend services in Britain, Canada and the U.S. combined.

More Roman Catholics will celebrate Easter Mass in the Philippines than in any European country. The largest church in the world is in South Korea. And more Christians will probably attend Easter services in China than in all of Europe together.

In short, for the first time since it began two millenniums ago, Christianity is no longer "Western" in any very meaningful sense.

"If on a Sunday you want to attend a lively, jammed full, fervent and life-changing service of Christian worship, you want to be in Nairobi, not in Stockholm," notes Mark Noll, a professor at Wheaton College. He adds, "But if you want to walk home safely late at night, you want to be in Stockholm, not Nairobi."

This shift could be just beginning. David Lyle Jeffrey of Baylor University sees some parallels between China today and the early Roman empire. He wonders aloud whether a Chinese Constantine will come along and convert to Christianity.

Chairman Mao largely destroyed traditional Chinese religions, yet Communism has died as a replacement faith and left a vacuum. "Among those disappointed true-believer Marxists, it may well be that Marxism has served as a kind of John the Baptist to the rapid emergence of Christianity among Chinese intellectuals," Professor Jeffrey said. Indeed, it seems possible to me that in a few decades, China could be a largely Christian nation.

Whether in China or Africa, the commitment of new converts is extraordinary. While I was interviewing villagers along the Zambezi River last Sunday, I met a young man who was setting out for his Pentecostal church at 8:30 a.m. "The service begins at 2 p.m.," he explained - but the journey is a five-hour hike each way.

So where faith is easy, it is fading; where it's a challenge, it thrives.

"When people are in difficulties, they want to cling to something," said the Rev. Johnson Makoti, a Pentecostal minister in Zimbabwe who drives a car plastered with Jesus bumper stickers. "The only solution people here can believe in is Jesus Christ."

People in this New Christendom are so zealous about their faith that I worry about the risk of new religious wars. In Africa, Christianity and Islam are competing furiously for converts, and in Nigeria, Ivory Coast and especially Sudan, the competition has sometimes led to violent clashes.

"Islam is a threat that is coming," the Rev. William Dennis McDonald, a Pentecostal minister in Zambia, warned me. He is organizing "operation checkmate" to boost Christianity and contain Islam in eastern Zambia.

The denominations gaining ground tend to be evangelical and especially Pentecostal; it's the churches with the strictest demands, like giving up drinking, that are flourishing.

All this is changing the character of global Christianity, making it more socially conservative. For example, African churches are often more hostile to gays than mainline American churches. The rise of the Christian right in the U.S. is finding some echoes in other parts of the world.

Yet conservative Christians in the U.S. should take heed. Christianity is thriving where it faces obstacles, like repression in China or suspicion of evangelicals in parts of Latin America and Africa. In those countries where religion enjoys privileges - Britain, Italy, Ireland, Spain or Iran - that establishment support seems to have stifled faith.

That's worth remembering in the debates about school prayers or public displays of the Ten Commandments: faith doesn't need any special leg up. Look at where religion is most vibrant today, talk to those who walk five hours to services, and the obvious conclusion is that what nurtures faith is not special privileges but rather adversity.


Update: Ken Masugi, writing on the Claremont Institute's Local Liberty blog sets the proper context on Kristof's well-meaning but oh-so-pc bit of liberal spin on spirituality (best read here at the Local Liberty site, with italics and hyperlinks intact):

The Future of Christianity and the Future of the World
Despite some silly statements--e.g., “The rise of the Christian right in the U.S. is finding some echoes in other parts of the world”—Nicholas Kristoff’s NY Times column presents an informative survey of the world-wide condition of Christianity: down in the West, flourishing everywhere else.

DETE CROSSING, Zimbabwe — So with Easter approaching, here I am in the heart of Christendom.

That's right - Africa. One of the most important trends reshaping the world is the decline of Christianity in Europe and its rise in Africa and other parts of the developing world, including Asia and Latin America….

On Easter, more Anglicans will attend church in Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania and Uganda - each - than Anglicans and Episcopalians together will attend services in Britain, Canada and the U.S. combined.

More Roman Catholics will celebrate Easter Mass in the Philippines than in any European country. The largest church in the world is in South Korea. And more Christians will probably attend Easter services in China than in all of Europe together.

Might China have its Constantine, muses David Lyle Jeffrey of Baylor University.

"Among those disappointed true-believer Marxists, it may well be that Marxism has served as a kind of John the Baptist to the rapid emergence of Christianity among Chinese intellectuals," Professor Jeffrey said. Indeed, it seems possible to me that in a few decades, China could be a largely Christian nation.

Would such a Christian church truly be independent or a tool of the party elite, as the Russian Orthodox Church was? Might the great world schism consist in a Chinese Church of the AntiChrist, headed by an Emperor-Deity, a new Caesar, against the world?

Kristoff’s exasperating conclusion: “the obvious conclusion is that what nurtures faith is not special privileges but rather adversity.” Like other liberals, he clearly does not understand America’s unique religious freedom, based on the natural rights political philosophy of the Declaration of Independence. (Besides Harry Jaffa's essay, read Philip Munoz's reflections.) Note Kristoff's own exclusion of American Christianity from his comparisons above, other than the mention of the Anglicans, who committed a kind of ritual suicide over homosexuality, among other issues. He might have asked what accounts for American churches seeking affiliation with African ones. Consider the case of the former Epsicopal parish of Newport Beach, CA affiliating with the Ugandan Anglican Church. See this transcript of an interview with church representatives on the Jim Lehrer Newshour. This reflects the vibrancy within non-mainstream American churches.

In other words, Kristoff's conclusion that "what nurtures faith is not special privileges but rather adversity" points rather to the opposite of what he intends: The "special privileges" of the establishment churches, which have yielded to the moral and political correctness of the times, have shrunk, while churches embracing traditional Christian teachings are flourishing. It is not coincidental that they overlap with politically conservative notions:

JEFFREY KAYE: St. James Church in affluent, predominantly Republican Newport Beach, California, is a place one wouldn't normally associate with rebellion and radical change…. But St. James is a house of worship in revolt. In August, it severed its ties with the Episcopal Church of the United States. With its 2.3 million members, the Episcopal Church is the American branch of the worldwide Anglican Communion. For 58 years, St. James was a part of the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles. Now, say its lay leaders, their bishop is 11 time zones away.

Further Update:

Here is a reflection on Ugandan worship by Tim Wakeling - focusing on the differences in spiritual energy between Uganda and the United Kingdom:

"Church is different in Uganda. But not that different. We do after all worship the same God, though Ugandans are more down-to-earth about it. And where the UK is nominally Christian only, Uganda is evidently Christian. In a big way. Most churches have two services: in English at 8am and Rukiga at 10am - the latter is much fuller. In both, Anglican tradition is evident but watch your step when reading well known phrases from the prayer book - the odd word and phrase is subtly changed for no apparent reason! Preaching is direct, simple and practical: "we must pray for protection from AIDS, from overpopulation (and the resulting shrinkage of inherited farmland from generation to generation)..."

Church denominations are less friendly than in the UK. We were advised to stick with Anglican churches since we were with the Diocese project... this doesn't however stop unashamed Christianity (which is big in Uganda) invading every area of life. "Jesus Is Lord" and other proclamations shout from vehicles, shops, signs. Even shop names - "Faith Photo Studio", "Trust In God Enterprises Inc", are designed to share Jesus! Musically, 80s choruses are in, Thees and
Thys are out, tempo is high and you always clap to songs. And we sung "O Lord My God When I In Awesome Wonder" at a tempo the UK can only dream of, to the beat of African drums and the drone of an electronic organ! Surreal."

New York Times Editorial: A Malaria Success

In 1998, the Australia-based mining company BHP Billiton began building a huge aluminum smelter outside Maputo, the capital of Mozambique. The company knew that malaria plagued the region. It gave all its workers mosquito nets and free medicine, and sprayed the construction site and workers' houses with insecticide. Nevertheless, during the first two years of construction there were 6,000 cases of malaria, and at least 13 contractors died.

To deal with the problem, the company did something extraordinary. It joined an effort by South Africa, Mozambique and Swaziland to eradicate malaria in a swath of the three countries measuring more than 40,000 square miles. The project is called the Lubombo Spatial Development Initiative, after the mountains that define the region. In the three years since house-to-house insecticide spraying, surveillance and state-of-the-art treatment began, malaria incidence dropped in one South African province by 96 percent. In the area around the aluminum smelter, 76 percent fewer children now carry the malaria parasite. The Lubombo initiative is probably the best antimalaria program in the world, an example for other countries that rolling back malaria is possible and cost-effective.

In its first years, financing came from BHP Billiton and the Business Trust, a development organization in South Africa financed by more than 100 companies there. They decided to fight malaria not only to save children and improve health, but also to encourage tourism and foreign investment. Governments should make the same calculation, and should follow the Lubombo example. Malaria kills some two million people a year, nearly all of them children under 5. A commission of the World Health Organization found that malaria shrinks the economy by 20 percent over 15 years in countries where it is most endemic.

The Lubombo initiative hires and trains local workers, who spray houses with insecticide once or twice a year, covering their communities on foot. People who get malaria are cured with a new combination of drugs that costs about $1.40 per cure for adults, abandoning the commonly used medicines that cost only pennies but have lost their effectiveness. While it is still the largest antimalaria project started by business in Africa, there are other successful ones, run by Marathon Oil, Exxon Mobil and the Konkola copper mines in Zambia. Fifty years ago, Africa did use house spraying widely, with good results, but such projects vanished as the money dried up. Today money is available again, from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, and the Lubombo initiative's managers are beginning to get calls from other parts of Africa. Malaria, unlike many other diseases, is entirely preventable and curable. The challenge for health officials is to fight malaria in very poor countries on a large scale, and now they have the Lubombo initiative to show them how.

Uganda Opposition In Public Protest

(BBC) More than 1,000 opposition supporters have staged a rare demonstration in the Ugandan capital, Kampala.

They protested against ongoing efforts to amend the constitution and allow President Yoweri Museveni to stand for re-election next year.

Mr Museveni - who came to power in 1986 - is showing no sign of quitting as those around him drum up support in order to change the constitution.

His supporters staged a demonstration in Kampala earlier this week.

It was the first time in recent years that the police had given permission for such an open display of criticism of government.

Mr Museveni is one of Africa's longest serving rulers.

The participants at Thursday's rally protested against moves to keep one of Africa's longest serving rulers in power.

According to the constitution he is due to step down in a year's time after serving two-terms in office.

But the president's supporters want to amend the constitution to allow him to stand again.

And this looks a real possibility as President Museveni has sufficient numbers in parliament to make the change.

A state house official said the peaceful demonstration was proof of free debate in the country and that the state was not going to use force to amend the constitution.

Party politics has been severely restricted for many years in order to cut down on sectarian violence.

The fact that the demonstrations this week have been peaceful will be welcomed by those calling for democratic change in Uganda.


Urbane Analysis: Note that the BBC (as well as this report from the Voice of America) fail to even mention the name of the opposition organization running this protest, much less provide a basic profile about them, their issues, and platform. Lazy journalism serves no one's interest, save cynics and entrenched power elites relying on that to maintain status quo. I would hope for better than that, particuarly from the VOA.

Meanwhile, Ugandan church leaders - from Catholic, Orthodox and Anglican denominations, remain steadfast in opposition to President Museveni's ambition toward "president for life" status. That is a huge story. The next vociferous "Desmond Tutu" clergymen of Ugandan need to be heard from the pulpits of America and Europe. Why aren't they racking up frequent flyer miles in support of Africa's quest for democracy - as led by them and other patriotic Ugandans? The out-front involvement of spiritual leaders of many faiths, standing together, will go a long way to assuage concern that opposition efforts are not being run from the barracks.

Mainstream media should lose its deafness to the moral message underlining (and uniting) Ugandan political parties in opposition. Restrictive laws keep opposition voices under tight control in Uganda (read more about this here). It is time for the world to hear from these leaders. It is time for the media to profile them and their efforts in struggle for the ballot. Why is it that time after time news editors ignore a story about the ballot - unless bullets are involved? Hey Media: Tag! You're it.

Clearly the opposition in Uganda needs to coalesce to a more refined degree than they have already shown. Demonstrations need to be carefully crafted - and scrupulously managed for a blend of domestic and international consumption and impact. The kind of visual imagery (think Lebanese cedar, Ukrainian orange) that other forces of democracy have used to attract the network video uplink trucks while galvanizing the resolve of its people - is a necessary next step in the progression toward bringing the cause of democracy in Uganda forward.

It would be wise for Ugandan opposition leaders to unify around figures who do not have military ties - such baggage only serves to create anxiety at several key Kampala embassies regarding the specter of coup d'etat. As an American Embassy official told me: "This place is always only twenty hours away from military meltdown. And it is an army with almost no ability to enforce meaningful command structure." In other words, the troops, once let loose in the streets - will loot and steal - and perhaps worse, kill. And in light of the legacy of genocide in Uganda, bring about panic dissolving civil society - and potentially touch off renewed tribal infighting. Fear of that scenario has allowed Museveni to govern without opposition since the 1980's.

The ball is firmly in the court of opposition leaders to demonstrate why that risk can be managed under conditions allowing multi-party elections.

Opposition leaders will really be able to attract international media attention if they can simultaneously demonstrate that they can defeat corruption(for more read here) - and offer a comprehensive strategy to change that paradigm.

By communicating both strategies (why fair play in politics supports transparency in development) in a comprehensive briefing format delivered endlessly to foreign ministry staffers and NGO managers working out of Kampala - then opposition leadership will be able to create the kind of "talk up" which will get journalists in the loop.

If Uganda is not allowed, because of the power of a strongman-leader, to move in to the light of fully-actualized democratic processes - then the case is now out there to be made that the rest of Africa has scant working "role model" countries to follow - given that South Africa's infrastructure makes it an anomaly. It is time to root for democracy in Uganda.



These IDP ("internally displaced persons" to those of us who don't use NGO-speak) children are just a few of the tens of thousands of Ugandan children facing severe malnutrition. Because of the violence which is allowed to persist in the north, these children face horrible dangers every night, including murder, sexual assault, kidnapping and slavery. The situation in northern areas of Uganda (itself a small country - no larger than the state of Oregon) is the worst ongoing humanitarian crisis on the planet right now. And it receives almost no attention from the us in America and Europe. This situation makes Bob Geldof and Bono very angry (read here and here). Once the world hears about it, there will be similar outrage. And demand for action. And not soon enough.

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Microsoft to expand operations in Uganda

By Dorothy Nakaweesi
The Monitor
Mar 12, 2005

KAMPALA - Microsoft - a global software developer - has expressed willingness to expand home, corporate and education markets in Uganda.

This is part of its mission to expand operational and business developments activities in the East African region.

“We have a strong and comprehensive operation that focuses purely on Africa,” Mr Kris Kego, a senior Microsoft East Africa executive, said.

He said of the countries Microsoft has visited in Africa, Uganda did represent a key developing market to which they believe they can add value. “Our operations here include a network of in-country nine Microsoft certified partners that are trained in Uganda,” he said on Thursday during a media presentation function held at Faze 2 in Kampala.

Kego also noted the importance of protecting Intellectual Property (IP) rights, which spurs growth and job creation that benefits consumers, industry and the economy at large.

He said protecting IP rights is vital and would save about $6 billion spend on research and development each year around the world thus a call for education of the business users.

The company also revealed its Local Language project of translating Microsoft programmes into local languages to reach masses who may not have knowledge of the English language.

So far, they are working on the Kiswahili version to be launched soon.
They also intend to partner with the government to make ICT part of school curricula. They signed an Partners in Learning memorandum of understanding with the government in December 2004.


LIKE THIS: The Microsoft East Africa’s Marketing Manager, Ms Tonia Mutiso (R), demonstrates how their product operates at a media presentation for journalists at Faze 2 in Kampala. Looking on is the Localisation Manager, Mr Patrick Opiyo
(Photo by Wandera w’Ouma).

© 2005 The Monitor Publications

Irish Wolfhounds and the British Bulldog

Perhaps now the world will finally taking notice: they mean what they say about Africa. Download the Commission for Africa report- released today - here.

Bono, Bob Geldof and Tony Blair - through various means and with major differences in style - are harmoniously setting forth the case for two big changes: real progress on advancing people's lives in Africa, and an end to the era of the strongman.

No doubt recent events, which are triggering democracy "breaking out" all over in the Muslim World, has made imagination of these possibilities more poignant in the last few weeks. And who do they have to thank for "amping up" the cause of freedom - the man who is putting backbone into that steely ambition for a free and just society in every nation? Oh, let's see, 'lemme think here, oh yeah...

George W. Bush!

Geldof in four-letter tirade against West over African poverty

By Anne Penketh, Diplomatic Editor
The Independent Online Edition
12 March 2005
The air in the Great Court of the British Museum turned blue yesterday when Bob Geldof launched into a four-letter tirade as he challenged rich countries to dig deeper into their pockets to relieve poverty in Africa. Geldof, a member of the Prime Minister's Commission for Africa, said Tony Blair should tell President George Bush that proposals outlined in the commission's report would cost the United States "fuck all" to free the African continent of the shackles of war, poverty and disease.
Mr Blair and the rock star were on a panel presenting the 460-page report to an audience of diplomats and aid workers. Geldof made an impassioned case for the commission's package to be implemented, arguing that for the rich members of the Group of Eight, the cost per day of doubling aid to assist African recovery was equivalent to "half a stick of chewing gum".
The commission's main recommendations, expected to be the centrepiece of the Gleneagles summit in July, challenge rich countries to double aid to Africa, end trade barriers and stamp out corruption. It urges the international community to immediately double foreign aid to Africa to $50bn (£25bn).
But Mr Blair faced questions about whether he would continue to press the Americans to stump up the necessary finance, after the US rejected a core UK-backed proposal on funding in the report. Referring to Geldof's four-letter outburst, Mr Blair said: "Because I'm a politician in a suit, I wince at the occasional word but actually what he said is really what I think."
Commission sources shrugged off Geldof's language, saying: "He didn't swear any more than he usually does." Earlier, on Radio Four's Today, Geldof said he would "keep on crapping on" about helping relieve African poverty.
Mr Blair, who is calling for a "new partnership" between donor countries and Africa, sees the report as part of a process that will culminate in the Doha Round of global trade talks in Hong Kong this December. But he made it clear he was committed to pursuing the commission's agenda, with or without full G8 backing.
"There can be no excuse, no defence, no justification for the plight of millions of our fellow beings in Africa today," he said. "There should be nothing that stands in our way of changing it. That is the simple message from the report."
Aid agencies have welcomed the report, which has been described as ambitious without being radical because many of its recommendations would hold donor countries and African states to respect existing mechanisms to help the continent break out of poverty.
Richard Dowden, director of the Royal African Society, said that report, for the first time "integrated in a single analysis what Africa has to do, what the rest of the world must do to support Africa and what the rest of the world must stop doing to stop damaging Africa".
But like many others, Mr Dowden was sceptical about the implementation of the recommendations, which have time-frames. British officials say because the commission includes leaders in power, including a majority from Africa, that is an incentive for success.

Britain's Geldof: "Get a grip Museveni. Your time is up, go away"

(New Vision) In an impassioned speech at the launch of Tony Blair’s Commission for Africa report in London yesterday, rock star and developing world campaigner Bob Geldof (above) said President Yoweri Museveni should not stand for a third term. The Commission for Africa was established in February 2004 to examine how best the world can help tackle Africa’s problems. Taking the podium at the British Museum after British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Geldof applauded Museveni’s achievements but advised him against staying on at State House.

“The President of Uganda, who implemented poverty measures and AIDS measures that all worked with debt relief, is now trying to be president for life. Get a grip Museveni. Your time is up, go away,” he told the gathered international media and dignitaries.

“Africa is stagnating in poverty while the rest of the world streaks away from it. Why? Is it the stupidity and brutality of the thugs that still operate governments throughout Africa?” Geldof asked.

He praised President Bingu wa Mutharika of Malawi. “Here is the President of Malawi. He’s a guy there who tried to clean up the government. Suddenly his party left him. Hullo!” he said.

After criticising Museveni, Geldof said: “Mugabe, that aging creep. Get out! Let Africa breathe. It is stirring.”

“It (Africa) has been a giant asleep in an enforced slumber, but it is stirring. There are free and fairish elections. There are 16 countries with enviable economic growth, from a low basis but getting there,” he concluded. Geldof said the difference between this and previous reports on how to end poverty in Africa was the level of political commitment from those in power in the world’s richest countries. But he said the key to development was ending misrule in Africa.
Geldof also spoke of the time he spent filming in northern Uganda and Blair’s reaction to the footage he saw.

“When the Prime Minister asked me ‘what is that?’ I explained it was (the sight of) 40,000 kids in northern Uganda being sent by their mums and dads from the villages that surround the town of Kitgum every night for 10 years to escape the thugs that will raid their village and take their children to be sex slaves and child soldiers,” he said.

“In our world,” he continued, “last night and tonight, 40,000 children will be walking up five dust roads to sleep on the rocks and rubble of a deserted town like Kitgum.” With anger rising in his voice, Geldof declared, “how dare we let that happen?”

A personality that brushes aside bureaucracy and officialdom, Geldof proclaimed: “I don’t care what it costs. I do not want 40,000 children walking up a road every night to escape being killed.”

Highlighting the injustice between the industrialised and developing world, Geldof continued by saying: “Let me tell you what the cost is, let me tell you how pathetic this is. Let me tell you about all the NGO arguments for Gleneagles (the venue for the G8 meeting later this year).”

“Do you know how much it costs? One half a stick of chewing gum for each citizen of the G7 countries a day; no jobs lost, no taxes raised, no farms closed, no factories closed,” he said. “What are we doing?”

Geldof asked in respect to the rest of the world neglecting the only continent to have grown poorer over the last two decades. The Commission for Africa proposed that wealthy countries increase their aid to Africa, raising it to U$50 billion over the next 10 years. It also highlighted the need for African governments to root out corruption that exists in many quarters.

Blair said Africa was the fundamental challenge for the present generation.
“Africa can change for the better and the report shows how. There can be no excuse, no defence, no justification for the plight of millions of our fellow human beings in Africa today,” he said.

The report’s overall findings and recommendations are to cancel debt, spend more on health, especially on HIV/Aids, provide free primary school education and the creation of fairer international trade rules. It also says the West should fund African peacekeeping activities, return the money stolen by past and present corrupt politicians and officials and end the sale of arms to conflict zones and warlords.

World Bank on Africa: “up to 35 percent of the money the bank spends for aid projects is lost through corruption”

From all the way back in 1999 come this compelling report, in the form of transcript, of a conversation/interview with World Bank officials about understanding the nature of corruption – and how it severely limits the effectiveness of World Bank initiatives around the world.

Particularly so with regard to Uganda – and its failures in dealing with these issues – in particular contrast to neighboring Tanzania, which has engaged on anti-corruption policies from the highest levels of government on down.

The situation in 1988:

“The basic principle we are applying to what I call a learning process is that basically we don't know how to do this work. We don't know how to fight corruption. None of us. We started to realize that up to 35 percent of the money the bank spends for aid projects is lost through corruption. We know in some countries we are part of the problem, not part of the solution, which is very tricky for international civil servants. They are working very hard and they are still part of the problem.”

How to work effectively against corruption in developing countries:

“Principle number one is we only do this work when invited in. We can't come in and do this on our own. We have to be invited in and we said we want to be invited in not only by the president and the government, we want to be invited in by groups in the civil society outside the government. Principle number two is we work with a broad-based segment of society. Principle number three is we do a survey of the social problems before we start work.”

The situation in Uganda:

“At a place called the Kampala Club where all the elite drinks beer, the word there was the parliament is out of control. This is what this is all about. If you ever fight corruption in these countries, you have to increase the uncertainty for the people who are crooked. Uncertainty was certainly up, but if it was up enough we don't know.”

Was Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni unaware of the situation? He is at the center of it, according to the World Bank:

“At present, Museveni has to pull the plug on his brother who was making probably ten million dollars on army procurement. He was also buying a bank from foreigners and he bought a company and sold it within 48 hours. The president's brother was really doing a lot of things that the president probably knew about.”

What is the impact on regular people, like at the village level?

“We did a survey in Uganda last August. It was the biggest corruption survey ever. We queried 100,000 people, around 2,000 service providers and then we had 350 focus groups. If you read those focus groups about the pain at the village level. The kids are dying because they can't pay the bribes to the nurse. They lose the case because the judge is bought off. They have been beaten up by the police. There is a lot of pain among 75 or 80 percent of the people, maybe 90 percent in Africa.”

Is the World Bank able to do this on its own? Not at all, and they make that clear:

“What we're trying to do is redistribute the pain a little bit, get some pain in the small group of people who are milking the system and try to relieve a little of the pain among the people who having very, very hard times. This is where we get the participatory process. In Uganda, we have done four National Integrity workshops. We realize that the national level is a lot of talk.”

What does taking action against corruption look like in practice?

“An important area that we end up working in is public education. The second thing is prevention. The third one is institution building. What we are doing there is very different. In the past we dealt only with the government, but now we also work on building parliaments, judiciaries, private sector civil society and the media. The last thing, which is the stickiest, is the enforcement. This is not our job, although we are getting into the police. We are realizing that if you only do public education without law enforcement, you get cynicism. We have to sit down with leaders and say to them, "Okay, if you want to play ball with public education, we have to do something on this other side. Otherwise, this will create problems for you."

The conditions described here from 1999 were virtually unchanged during my visit to Uganda one year ago. It has taken six years for the Ugandan government to advance to the place where all government officials must declare their wealth and holdings – in order to stand up to audit from independent probes. The limitation on this is that it is only a snapshot from one point in time – it is neither retrospective nor an ongoing requirement in the future. And does not seem to encompass the “spreading out” of wealth among cronies and relatives beyond the reach of this regulation.

The U.S. State Department has indicated that Uganda is moving backwards on human rights, anti-corruption efforts, and development of democracy.

Corruption is as virulent and malevolent a force as Saddam’s sadism.

If the trans-Atlantic alliance has been recently repaired – and Europe is talking again with the Bush Administration – what better focus of renewal could there be than accomplishing tangible results against the pervasive influence of corruption. There can be no better place to start than focusing on Yoweri Museveni.